The Netherlands Day 1 and 2

Alright, so we have barely finished the last adventures throughout the UK, when we threw a whole new country, currency and time zone at Whitney.  Whoever said I wasn't a nice brother.

As if that wasn't enough, we also made her do daylight savings time twice!  hehe.  For what it's worth, I blame George W. Bush for changing when Canada and the US make the switch a number of years ago.

Needless to say, Whit thoroughly enjoyed our one hour flight to Amsterdam.

Kristin thought this was a particularly entertaining billboard for ING as we traveled through the airport.

We quickly sailed through the airport, and before long we were on the train to the city centre.  Kristin and I both commented that Amsterdam wins the prize for the most convenient and efficient airport.

Our plan was to train to the city centre, drop off our carry-on luggage, pick up some rental bikes, meet up with Amy, and start on our cycle-quest towards Utrecht, and then Culemborg the next day.

We were so happy at this moment.  All smiles and no sore bums. <SPOILER ALERT>

So plans kinda went awry from about the first step.  Amy, our Canadian friend studying in Maastrict, who was supposed to join us for the ride, took a tumble from her bike on the way from the central station to the bike rental shop.  Understandably, she opted to seek medical attention rather than start on a many hours long bike ride.   She is fine now, and has no lasting wounds, but we were awfully worried about her until we heard she was ok.

And then there were 3.

So what the pictures haven't yet captured is the weather.  Official forecast from this morning calls for a high of 11° (we can work with that), 75% chance of precipitation (uuuhhhhh....), with up to 8 mm of rainfall (oh no), and last, a 25 km/h headwind... well now we have ourselves a real party.

So the bad news is that we have remarkably few photos from the first day.  It turns out that cycling into a strong headwind takes most of your limbs, and leaves few opportunities for selfies.  

One of the photos we were able to take shows the quaint farms and countryside we were cycling through.

There are a few videos that I took, which can be found here:

Videos cycling through The Netherlands

The videos are unedited, so you've been warned.  Some of them are quite shaky, and the wind made any audio impossible to hear.  We're going to try to edit the footage down to a better compilation... as soon as we find the time and learn how to edit video ;)

We started out at noon on what Google told us would be a 2.5 hr bike ride.  Google has obviously set the average speed of a cyclist to that of Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, while he was on Roids.  When we talked about this with others we met, they universally said Google typically underestimates cycling times by almost half.

So our 2.5 hr trip on day 1 turned into a 5.5 hr slog.  This is where the bums first started aching.

Luckily for us, The Netherlands is a beautiful country, with lots of amazing little towns along the way, and the most extensive biking infrastructure I have ever experienced.  

We traveled a total of 57 km on Day 1, and there was not a moment that we didn't have a marking of some kind, on smooth pavement identifying that we were in a bike lane, and had priority over cars.

These are our three trusty steeds.  Although they each weighed about 15 kg, they were fairly easy to pedal.  As cushy as the seats were, they were not able to prevent our very sore bums.

So while we did fight the headwind all day long, we were surprisingly lucky that we only got a small bit of rain on us, which wasn't even enough to grab ponchos or seek cover.  In fact, the strong wind had us dry again in no time.  Like cycling into a Dyson.

Once safely in Utrecht, our AirBNB host recommended this great restaurant for us.  It was located under the street, in what I think used to be old city cellars, where goods brought along the canals could be safely stored.  It was a great way to re-design the space, and added an incredible character to the dinner experience.

See the red lights in the bottom left, this is the entrance to the restaurant.  The blue lights mark the river canal passing through and under the city.

Some of the sights of downtown Utrecht.

This is the central clock tower of town.  Beautifully lit up at night.

The biggest downside to the bad weather was that we didn't have a chance to explore Utrecht.  By the time we got into town, and had a chance to get cleaned up, it was already dark out.  I tried to set a route the next day that would bring us through the city centre, but something went wrong with our navigation on Google maps, and we ended up riding out of the far side of the city.  By the time we realized we'd been redirected, we were too far along to consider backtracking.  One of many things we left for the next visit.

So the forecast for day 2 doesn't look that much better.  Today we have another 27 km to cover.  Official weather forecast, temperature of 10° (once again we can work with that),  70% chance of precipitation (does it count that it's less than yesterday?), 5-7 mm of rain (any way we can make a suggestion between those values?), and now a 30 km/h headwind.  

Three of the four numbers went down, but I'm not sure they're the ones I would have picked.

In any case, we set off once more into the wild grey yonder.

Day 2 was definitely harder than day 1.  The national weather service had issued wind warnings across The Netherlands, and I believe we were the only people we saw all day on cycles, at least once we were in the countryside.  Once again, we were lucky that the rain pretty much held off for our ride.  Kristin did capture a great video that shows the wind we were facing on the ride.  It's linked here:

Wind on the berm

Somewhere about halfway through our route today we considered 'throwing in the towel'.  We got caught in a bit of rain, and decided to stop in a village to have some breakfast.  Recognizing the slow pace we were making, we started looking at other options to get to Culemborg.  It's probably fate, that we picked Easter Monday to bike, so most shops, businesses and alternatives were closed.  Added to that, they were doing repairs on the train tracks, so effectively we were stuck with our bikes.

But at last, our luck (and the road) turned.  As we were about 1.5 km from the ferry dock across to Culemborg, we caught the wind at our back, and easily cruised all the way to the ferry dock.

The ferry captain was astonished to see cyclists today.  Although he claimed his English wasn't very good, he completely understood and agreed when we asked if we were idiotic fools for cycling today.

And just like that, we were in Culemborg.

So the reason for cycling to Culemborg is because it is the hometown of my Oma and Opa, the town they grew up in, and from which they left when they emigrated to start a new life in Canada in the 1950s.

In my family, there is a classic photo that everyone who visits this town manages to capture.  That is of the building in which my Opa learned and practiced as a typesetter and printer.  The building contained a stone set above the first floor windows with my Opa's initials.

During the planning for the trip, we had asked about the location of Opa's shop, and were disappointed to find, using Google Streetview, that it appears the building has been re-facaded, and the stone is no longer in place.

Here Whitney and I are still taking in the shop and surrounding area.

The streets of Culemborg are the typical European style we've come to love as we've traveled around.  

After the photos above, we made our way to our rendezvous point with my dad's cousins, Wil and Otto.  Being awfully inconsiderate, the town scheduled a race this afternoon, so we had to duck and dodge some of the runners before we were spotted by Wil and Otto.  I can't imagine how they would have noticed us, maybe it was the bike helmets (that's almost a taboo in The Netherlands), the wind blown rosiness of our cheeks, or the exhausted looks on our faces.  In any case, they spotted us and after a quick photo for posterity

We went off to a cafe in the former orphanage (now a museum and coffee shop) for a warm drink and a snack.

Warmed up and refueled, we had a tour around Culemborg.

I can tell you, no child ever likes to know that their parents were wrong, but in this case, we're all a bit relieved.  As we cycled along, Wil pointed up to a familiar building we've only seen in pictures before.

Happy to report, that the outside of Opa's print shop is still as it was, and the name stone is still in place.  It was a fantastic feeling to stand there, so far from home, but so close to memories and history of our family.  In trying to re-trace the location, my dad and Oma missed the spot by 1 street (I think it was the left turn at Albuquerque).  We were, needless to say very relieved and excited by this turn of luck.

It was a reminder of how much our grandparents left behind, literally their entire life, to take a chance on a new life in Canada, in hopes that they will offer their children a better, or an easier, or a more secure, life than the one they had.

As we stood there, looking out at the street around us, we both wondered how much has the town actually changed, and how much has it remained the same.  

Stepping a bit out of order now, the other spot we really wanted to visit that relates to our grandparent's life in Culemborg was Oma's childhood home and farm.  True to form, it was exactly as the pictures in Oma and Opa's house looked.  Amazing to be somewhere so foreign, and feel so connected back to home.

Back in order, and to the town centre:

This is the town hall in the centre of town, which makes up one side of the centre square.  The town hall dates to 1534!  Once again, as it was a holiday Monday, and Easter, everything was closed up, so I don't have more history on the local buildings.

This is the main church St. Barbara's, in town, on the second side of the square.  All we were able to gain from our stop outside is it is likely the church in which Oma and Opa were married.  There are some records of it also into the 1500's, but we didn't find out more specifics.

And the town gate-house facing the town hall.  The town of Culemborg was a walled city, surrounded by canals (what's really the difference between a canal and a moat?).  The town dates back to the 1200's, and as a matter of security, was closed off to prevent attack.  While today, there are more ways into and out of the town centre, in the recent history (including when Oma and Opa lived here), the gate was closed nightly at 10 pm, and if you were caught outside the walls, you had to find somewhere else to sleep for the night.  Every night, at 9:45, the bells would ring, to signal to the workers in the field that they had to hustle back to town or be locked out.  Although they don't close the town gate anymore, the bells are still rung nightly at 9:45, and Wil explained to us she uses that to set her watch.  It's a lovely continuation of history beyond the utility of the act.

The town still has two traditional windmills, although Wil pointed out that if they are run at all these days, it's as a hobby on an artisan level, and not as a working profession.

At the Culemborg train station, this is the outdoor bicycle racks.  Culemborg is a pretty small town, and yet there are hundreds of bikes parked here every day.

So this is how we ended our two day trek back to our Oma and Opa's hometown.  The Dutch have a word which is effectively untranslatable into English.  The word, gezellig, essentially means a feeling of conviviality, warmth, friendship and well-being, especially when shared with family and friends.  At this moment, sitting around a table with family, and sharing a delicious meal, and fantastic conversation, I first understood the meaning of gezellig.  Thanks Wil and Otto for helping us with the route, encouraging us to keep going mid-route, meeting us in Culemborg, providing us with a tour, and showing us what gezellig is all about.